Emperor Artabanos had done this more times than he could remember. He had tried counting all visits made by foreign dignitaries to Inimicus, the amount of times he had been sitting in this waiting lounge, the amount of times he had made his way to the Imperial Palace from the Aerodrome. Despite his effors, he failed to keep track. However, he was not bored of meeting foreign statesmen and -women. He loved not knowing exactly how people's demeanour was, how the faces he'd seen on television were in real-life, and what nations had to offer Inimicus. He empited his cup of espresso - the finest Inimician blend, of course - straightened his tie, pulled straight his jacket, and headed outside, where he was reminded he had forgotten his coat.

The Havvenskarian plane came to a halt with schreeching tyres. It took a few minutes before it finally came to a halt, about ten metres from where the Inimician delegation was stood. The doors opened, and the Havvenskarian King appeared.

"Here we are." said King Olav while leaving the plane. He put his hat straight. King Olav always wore a hat outside on cold days. This day however, was quite mild. He stepped onto the tarmac of the runway and walked towards the delegationn.

"Goddag, Emperor Artabanos. I was at the christmas dinner but I did not really had a chance to speak with you. How are you today?" King Olav shook hands with Emperor Artabanos.

"Great to see you, Your Majesty", Emperor Artabanos said as he kindly shook King Olav's hand. He recognised his face from the dinner, although he remembered very little from that night, but he was sad he had not had time to speak with this interesting monarch. As far as he knew, Havvenskar was a right-wing conservative nation, a bit too right-wing and conservative perhaps, but with a friendly people. The new organisation they had formed, UNS, could, however, attempt to rival Triclops, so Artabanos would have to be careful speaking of military matters.

"Shall we head inside, Your Majesty?", Artabanos said kindly, "I'm afraid I'm 'coatless' today, so I'd rather we continued to heated areas as soon as possible!"

Greeted by the press - as was customary - the statesmen made their way to their motorcade, flanked by Inimician security guards, His Majesty's Own. Havvenskarian and Inimician flags were boasting on Emperor Artabanos's armoured limousine, which would take them - as was customary - to the Imperial Palace, where meetings involving the Emperor were conducted. As the car was cruising through the blocked-off streets and alleys leading to the Palace, Artabanos found himself in an awkward silence. He did not really know what to say, he had met this leader before, but knew nothing about him. He did not take his hat off inside the car, either, which seemed weird to the Emperor. "So", he finally broke the ice, "Could you tell me about your country? I have to admit I know very little about it."

"I'll gladly tell some things about our nation." said the King. "Before the Medieval Age Havvenskar did not exist in its current form. It consisted of tribes who had formed three Kingdoms: the Kingdom of Skar, Havvendar and Hammarjevn. These three waged war with each other continuesly. However, after the battle of Fjelletvann, where the three Kings fell, the son of the King of Havvendar, Harald, united the three Kingdoms. Since this day he was known as Harald den Forsorer, which means Harald the Uniter." King Olav looked proud while he was telling about the history of Havvenskar. "The heirs of Harald den Forsorer ruled ever since that day.

Well, enough about history. Havvenskar is a cold country in the North with a population of about 13 million people. Together with the Teutonic State and Poretos we form Scandinavia. Havvenskar and the Teutonic State founded the United Nations of Scandinavia, or UNS for short to increase trade, and also our chances with military conflict. Our nations do not have an enormous army like yours, Emperor," he glimpsed at the Emperor who remained quiet, "so we decided to help each other out should this be necessary. We are now negotiating with Poretos to join the UNS as well.

But enough of Havvenskar. Would you like to tell about Inimicus, because I have to be honest, I do not know a lot about Inimicus."

Inside, Artabanos sighed. He had told people of Inimicus's history thousands of times, and would rather not do so again. However, he had to keep a straight face. "nimicus began in 1342, when a nomadic tribe settled in the land we are currently driving through. They were known as the Adstringo, literally meaning "those who are tied together", and built a city, which, after an attack by a hostile tribe, they named Telum, "weapon". A civil war broke out in 1402, won by the enemies of the then King. The First Kingless Age began. These "Inimici" (Latin for enemy) established Parliament in its first form and the Kingdom of Inimicus was born with an elected monarch in 1404.

"A second civil war overthrew the Kings, who had now managed to encompass Inimicus's current territories, and a military dictatorship was founded, the Republic of Telum. The Second Kingless Age had begun. This dictatorship fared well in its early years, but in the late 20th century and early 21st century it enouncered problems. A large political party known as the Teluminan Monarchy Party, of which I was a member myself, stirred trouble for the Presidential administration. In 2011, the third Inimician civil war began. A year later, the Republic was overthrown and the Empire of Inimicus was formed.

"In 1421, King Onomakritos declared himself a deity and was hailed by the people. Back then, this Imperial Cult was real and people actually took Kings for gods. This 'tradition' was reinstated two years past, and thus Emperor Artabanos is factually a deity, and the Imperial Cult is the state religion of Inimiucs. However, Inimicus is extremely secularised, the separation between church and state is as clear as glass: religion is not subsidised, not taught in school, and no political parties may draw manifesto issues from religion. The Emperor does have absolute power, however, although he must keep to Inimician laws and the constitution."

The limousine pulled into the Imperial Square, where a customary inspection of the Honour Guard was going to take place. The doors opened and the two leaders ascended the steps to a small stage. "You probably know what's going to happen next", Artabanos said, "They're going to play both our anthems, and then we'll continue to inspect the Guard." The band began playing the deep, somewhat dark-sounding tunes of the Havvenskarian anthem, quickly followed by its Inimician counterpart, though not exactly, for Imperial occassions, the Inimician Imperial Anthem was used.

"Splendid. Although I did not understand the Inimician words in the anthem, it was quite nice. Not as nice of course as the Havvenskarian one." he said jokingly. Artabanos showed no response. "Ahem, let us inspect the guard then."

The Inimician Honour Guard was present. The guard, with a waving Inimician Flag above them, was truly a magnificent sight to behold. After the Guard was inspected Emperor Artabanos and King Olav moved inside of the Palace where the summit was going to take place.

"Quite a nice palace you have here. The Christmas Dinner was somewhere here too, right? I'd got lost in the corridors multiple times, if I did not had my son Prince Aldrik with me. He has an excellent sense of direction."

After having angrily yet inconspicuously spoken to an Imperial Guardsman about the lack of a Havvenskarian flag, Emperor Artabanos showed his foreign counterpart around in his palace. "Yes, well, I have to admit that even after almost a year of living in this place I haven't been in every room and sometimes find myself thinking 'where the hell have I ended up now?'", he laughed and continued, "Anyway, we're walking through the main lobby now, and we'll turn right at the end of that corridor you see there so we'll end up in one of many conference rooms (I think) where we can talk in all comfort and privacy."

Unsure, but relieved when it turned out he was right - partially, at least, Artabanos offered King Olav a comfortable seat in the largest conference room the Imperial Palace had to offer - perhaps he should've taken a left turn to end up in the smaller, more private room - and had a servant ask him what to drink. When both their favourite beverages had been poured (it was not a very heavy occasion, so Artabanos was served tea) the Emperor began: "Right, Your Majesty, here we are. Let me kick in the door and begin business: Inimicus, even though we are currently in a bit of a tedious situation, would like to trade. What does Havvenskar have to offer?"

Olav was sipping his tea, but it was still too hot to drink right now.

"Havvenskar does not export a large number of resources, however the resources we do export are exported in large quantities each year. Our industries are increasing each year hand in hand with the increasing of our population, which goes quite rapidly at the moment. Our main export contains of fish from the Baltic Sea, iron and copper from the Takkfjelle, and wood from our many pineforests. Recently we also discovered a source of Titanium, however, we have not yet started delving to the Titanium. It is also quite hard to gain after the ore has been mined. Or so I have been told.

I like to know what you want to have, and also what you have to offer so we can make a fair trade, which will benefit us both."

"Hmm, yes, well, fish, iron, copper and lumber are plentiful in Inimicus, so I don't think we will be able to come to agreement in that area. Once you do start exploring the titanium deposits in your nation, however, we are more than willing to buy some of that from you", Emperor Artabanos said, sighing somewhat, already knowing that the 'fair trade deal' his Havvenskarian colleague was talking about, was not going to materialise. Although perhaps he would be able, with his diplomatic skills - he had always estimated those not incredibly amazing, however - to make something of this anyway.

"Inimicus could offer you fish, lumber, iron and copper, as well, but since you export those products yourself, that won't be much good. We also export bauxite ore, natural gas, and in special circumstances, uranium. Whether or not we export that last ore is entirely up to the nation we're exporting to, and we will have to carefully see if Inimicus is prepared to do so with Havvenskar."

"Well, uranium is something Havvenskar does not need. We have not got a Nuclear License, so we may not build reactors and soforth. However, I am quite interested in importing bauxite ore. We can use that in our growing industries to gain aluminium.

Now, something else: what do you say about free travel between our nations? That would make life easier for tourists and employees who need to travel abroad a lot."

While Olav waited for an answer he drank from his tea, which had cooled down enough. He never had this kind of tea before. Apparently it was an inimician blend.

Surprised at the apparent ignorance of King Olav, Artabanos said: "Nations do not need nuclear licenses to produce nuclear power, if you didn't know - and apparently, you didn't, haha!"

"However, since you have no reactors at present and might not want to build any, I will not offer you any uranium. I would be interested to know, however, what you would offer us in return for the bauxite ore. The produce you mentioned is not something we need, although we would be willing to let you purchase our ore for money.

"Free travel is something that, unless arranged with a group of nations that share borders, not something Inimicus is particularly interested in. We value our customs and border patrols highly, especially with the precarious situation we have to the east of our country. Our border with Dromund Kaas is still completely shut down, and I do not see much incentive to open up our borders for Havvenskarians, nice and kind a people you might be. We might be able to negotiate a reduction of visa restrictions and import tariffs, however."

Emperor Artabanos swallowed the rest of his tea in one gulp - slightly too hot, he coughed - and pulled out a few papers. He put them on the table and bent over to read them. Of course, he had forgotten his reading glasses, and the small letters were hard to read. "Right, the price for our 88% purity bauxite ore is ?500 per metric tonne, but the price goes down if you buy more. I think, let me just see, there should be a formula for this kind of thing", he said, attempting to look professional while scanning the papers, "Ah, here we are. For every ten tonnes you order, the price goes down by ?10. So let's have the notaries work that out, shall we? We're only here to discuss the red lines.

"Err, let's see. Ah, yes, visas and import tariffs. Obviously import tariffs would depend on the level of VAT Havvenskar charges - Inimicus charges 10%, and I have no plans of changing that level - but if you could inform me what VAT is in Havvenskar, we could come to agreement. I think it would be best to completely abolish import tariffs between our two nations, so we can trade openly and freely without the need of a full customs union."